I had been hearing for years about some cult band called Boris and how they put out tons of albums in different styles. So I downloaded Heavy Rocks. I was in Korea, stone cold sober (by choice), and I went for a walk in the evening with my mp3 player. When I put on the headphones and started my ears suffered an aural blitzkrieg. The fan who had ripped the cd must have adjusted the volume and by adjusted I mean cranked it up as far as it would go. So the feedback/first chord strum demolished my ear-holes.

The A Bao A Qu
If you want to look out over the loveliest landscape in the world, you must climb to the top of the Tower of Victory in Chitor. There, standing on a circular terrace, one has a sweep of the whole horizon. A winding stairway gives access to this terrace, but only those who do not believe in the legend dare climb up. The tale runs:

On the stairway of the Tower of Victory there has lived since the beginning of time a being sensitive to the many shades of the human soul and known as the A Bao A Qu. It lies dormant, for the most part on the first step, until at the approach of a person some secret life is touched off in it, and deep within the creature an inner light begins to glow. At the same time, its body and almost translucent skin begin to stir. But only when someone starts up the spiralling stairs is the A Bao A Qu brought to consciousness, and then it sticks close to the visitor’s heels, keeping to the outside of the turning steps, where they are most worn by the generations of pilgrims. At each level the creature’s colour becomes more intense, its shape approaches perfection, and the bluish form it gives off is more brilliant. But it achieves its ultimate form only at the topmost step, when the climber is a person who has attained Nirvana and whose acts cast no shadows. Otherwise, the A Bao A Qu hangs back before reaching the top, as if paralysed, its body incomplete, its blue growing paler, and its glow hesitant. The creature suffers when it cannot come to completion, and its moan is a barely audible sound, something like the rustling of silk. Its span of life is brief, since as soon as the traveller climbs down, the A Bao A Qu wheels and tumbles to the first steps, where, worn out and almost shapeless, it waits for the next visitor. People say that its tentacles are visible only when it reaches the middle of the staircase. It is also said that it can see with its whole body and that to the touch it is like the skin of a peach.

In the course of centuries, the A Bao A Qu has reached the terrace only once.

This legend is recorded by C. C. Iturvuru in an appendix to his now classic treatise On Malay Witchcraft (1937).

Jorge Luis Borges i Margarita Guerrero, The Book of Imaginary Beings, 1969.

That is Wata's most precious studio gibson les paul. as far as i know that is her only guitar.

when i saw boris live she had her axe sitting on stage in a single rack back turned. check this: the paint from the back of the fretboard was completely stripped by playing, from the neck down to the base. you could see how she had worn it down starting at the top.

Moving on: one cute thing about me liking boris is that i have no idea what that long haired fucker is saying. so i usually just hum or whistle along except for when there is a syllable or two that I remeber like "nakte" or "kurui" or something. then i belt it out with gusto later subsiding to the humming and whistling as before

Tiny japanese woman? What's that supposed to mean? Huh? I bet you Wata could beat you in arm wrestling any day. Or maybe I would just tell Atsuo what you called her and he'd kick you ass for her. and i would watch and throw devil horns salutes and stuff.

o and i still think Wata stripped that neck with her bear hands. With her bear hands i say.

Satan is often used as a motif in heavy metal music. But to me, the devil is not a symbol but a moment that touches on morals. A moment when daily life changes to non-daily life. The moment whena person changes - that is the devil. Or the potential that inspires that person to change. The Devil is not symbol, but an everyday occurence.